I've seen a couple of threads lately where the issue of GM agency in encounters has come up. Some people have made it a point of pride to say they "don't coddle the players" while others have made it an equal point of pride to say that they are player advocates and want the players to generally be in a position to win encounters and be heroic.
GM fiat is written into the rules so the ability of a GM to "fudge" an encounter is clearly well within the game's scope. But it may or may not be in an individual group's social contract.
I am wondering how GMs in general address this issue with their players. Do you have a specific social contract in place? By which I mean have you officially stated, in your capacity as a GM, at the gaming table (or through email) that you do or do not fudge encounters? If you have made such a statement, to you truly stick to your guns, or do you sometimes fudge anyway?
And what do you consider "coddling" or "fudging" anyway? If you carefully tailor an encounter to match the party's power level, is that an example of coddling the players? After all there's usually no compelling story reason that a group of ogres be 3 ogres instead of 6. But 6 would wipe out the party, while 3 would be a good challenge. So by building a 3 ogre encounter are you already "coddling" the party, even before the encounter begins?
If you do tailor encounters to match the party's power level, and it ends up that you misjudged and the encounter is obviously careening towards a TPK, do you consider that to be a player problem and continue to play your NPCs or monsters rigorously according to their abilities, or do you consider the situation to be a GM mistake that now needs to be corrected by the GM by fudging some rolls or making some deliberately poor tactical choices?
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If I made a mistake and the battle is heading towards a TPK or even a PC death, then yes, I pull back. However, I roll all dice in the open, so a lucky crit can still kill.
The point is, killing a PC hurts *MY* storyline as much as it hurts the player, perhaps more. I weave PC backgrounds, etc into the encounters.
More or less, permanent death is only when a player is tired of that PC, or at lower levels with that lucky crit (but at lower levels, it’s easier to weave a new PC back into the story while unraveling the old Pc’s part).
However, if a Player deliberately designs a 'glass cannon' he can end up sitting out a number of combats due to being taken down, failed saves etc. Thus Players know they need some decent defenses.
It's been a while since I've been the GM, but I'm currently building my own adventure.
I "coddle" by trying to respect the Adventure design guidlines as best as possible for the APL of my players. If during the course of the adventure I realise that I did an evident design error, like an overpowered encounter, I'll fudge the rolls not to TPK the party.
If the players do something really stupid like going into the previously announced lair of the BBEG unprepared, I let them pay for it, without making it on purpose to TPK the party. Some characters might die but I won't TPK them just for the sake of it.
In between, I sometime fudge to counterbalance some really unlucky dice rolls on both sides.
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I guess I should answer the questions for my own GM style.
I do not make any explicit statements about whether I will or will not fudge dice or modify encounters. I admit that I imply that I don't fudge dice or modify encounters and I let the players believe that I am a "hard-ass" GM deliberately. I do so because I think players like to believe that their GM is a tough GM because it gives them a sense of satisfaction to win against such a GM. But I've never made an overt statement to the group about my GM fiat willingness or history.
As far as game play itself goes, if I design an encounter and it is clearly overpowered, I do view that as a failure on my part. I should know the player group better. For this reason I typically design a good fraction of my encounters with the potential to modify the encounter plausibly during the encounter. That usually means having some backup NPCs or monsters that can be called into the fight if it is clearly too easy, or it means holding back on some of my most powerful NPCs or monsters in the early rounds to see if using their big guns might be too much.
I recently ran an encounter with a higher level wizard and it was clear within the first few rounds that if I unleashed the wizard's full power, the party was doomed. So I downgraded him by two levels on the fly and continued the encounter as if he had been that level to begin with. That meant losing an entire level of spells, which made him too weak. So, again, on the fly, I gave him a scroll to enable the single casting of the higher level spell that put the party at greater risk.
The players had no idea of course. I wonder if other GMs do the same thing or this on-the-fly adjustment of encounters is considered "badwrongfun" by some players.
I would aim to offer alternatives to 'make new characters' where possible.
That might be a chance to run, a chance to surrender (which could lead to working for the other side, breaking out of some prison, lots of nice stuff), they might be able to sacrifice something like a valuable item to get away, ect.
Half my loot hoardes are usually consumable items because being forced to use them means the encounters are challenging and gives an actual level of 'loss' to the players, while not having to use them can feel rewarding and like the PCs handled an encounter well. It means they have ways out of tough spots and don't feel coaxed along at no cost.
I wouldn't say I coddle players, I will though say that once or twice I've held back. I'm currently gming reign of winter and early on like lvl 1-2 there is a very deadly encounter that tpk'd the party. I didn't hold back as rp wise there was no reason to hold back, so I killed them. When playing the same encounter the second time (under slightly different circumstances) I held back once as not to kill one character and perhaps not tpk again. Once was enough. Still a very deadly encounter even though everyone knew what to expect.
In general I GM the way I want to be GM'd for. And that is occasionally very deadly. I have only held back one other time and that was because I felt it was perhaps an unfair encounter to be throwing at the party (custom game) In that encounter if I had played it fully it may have again been tpk. (Shadow Demon).
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The GM should be fair. Cruelty should come from the dice, not the person who rolls them.
They should make every adventure winnable, they should avoid getting in a competition with the players, and they should try the best they are able to do what they think would happen in that world, given what the players decide to do.
A good GM knows the world, knows the people, knows what they would do and what is going on. A good GM does not metagame off table knowledge, but never hesitates to play intelligent creatures intelligently.
And adventuring is dangerous work. Players have advantages and should generally win...but at what cost? And when decisions have outcomes...well decisions should have outcomes.
I'm not sure where my games fall on the death spectrum, if anything I seem to have somewhat have less deaths generally than the GM's I enjoy playing under.
But I always ask "What would happen next?" and everything else seems to take care of itself.
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I don't like to coddle once an encounter starts.
IMO, most encounters (I think the official figure is 90-95%) should be beatable. Harder encounters can come about the following ways:
1) "Boss" battle. These are pivotal battle royales with cheese, and frequently the PCs will buff and use all the daily resources they have left. After all, the NPCs will do the same.
2) "Here there be dragons." If 1st-level PCs are trying to raid Smaug's lair... Smaug isn't a 1st-level encounter, and you know it. It's fair warning. Something similar, if say you see a powerful wizard and his four elite bodyguards, his apprentice, his golem, his eight chase guards... even though you don't know what level/CR most of those guys are, picking a fight with him is a bad idea. "Random encounters" don't necessarily mean "go and fight".
3) Stupidity. If a PC randomly murders a person in a tavern and in their attempts to flee draws numerous watchmen on them (or worse, they don't flee!) having an incredibly over-APL 3 or 4 encounters drop on them at once is fair. The PCs could surrender in that circumstance.
Or (in a D&D Next playtest) our PCs stupidly drew two tribes of orcs (three encounters in one) on our heads. Had we just failed to be stealthy, we would have fought one encounter, which is bad enough (you only have so many healing spells at 1st-level) and might have had to fight a second encounter right after ("go check out that fighting") but we wouldn't have been screwed before the first die was dropped.
Of course, on rare occasion you might have to coddle anyway. If you threw a ghost at your PCs, and it turned out they didn't have any magic weapons, it's probably a good idea to nerf it "behind the scenes".
I usually don't coddle, I ask my players if they'd like me to softball the game to them and the usual response is make it challenging.
But on occasion I do modify things, for instance a player's paladin had a love story going and during the course of the adventure he was almost dead, I pulled two hits off of him during his escape. Later when he assaulted a tomb with a powerful monster I re-applied those hits dropping him into negatives.
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I think the trouble only happens at the moment of impasse, and that moment seems to come up more than it should.... Some people only enjoy the game when they're playing it right to the edge. When every encounter feels like it left you bleeding and barely alive on the battlefield.
Xtreme Gaming... Unless you're on your skateboard going 90 miles an hour down a sheer cliff face. You ain't aliiiiiive. (cue rock music/speed metal/dubstep)
This means that you're 100 percent in a state of either killing characters all the time or saving characters from certain death all the time and both situations feel intense but at the same time both can end up feeling less genuine.
In my tables I like 'moments of oh crap its time to go' but always find a way of improvising or choreographing an out hopefully that the characters feel a sense of their own contribution in discovering. Because I let my players play what they want to play, most of my players are playing something they don't want to see die. And I'm not running a game where I want to kill their characters either.
Every action movie would seem inherently stupider if the hero died at the end. If iron man died at the end of avengers? If Frodo dove into the Lava? Indiana Jones saved the village children but fell to his death on the rope bridge? Braveheart is stunning but not stunningly awesome.
Being able to create the *illusion* of danger effectively is cinematically more relevant even though at the end of the day you know most of the cast came back for RED 2 and Expendables 2 no matter how many bombs blew up and bullets were fired and bellies got stabbed. An interesting world is, most of the time, more than simply a deadly world unless the folks at your table are ony ever invested in a campain that keeps them at the brink of death 24x7 like a zombie apocalypse or 'storming the beaches of normandy with a spoon'
Hopefully most people's campaigns are awesome and interesting and engaging without people always being on deaths door all the time. The more boring the campaign is the more you need to seed it with near death experiences and the more closely you play to a requirement (paint yourself into a corner) to kill or nearly kill the party.
It shouldn't so much be a situation where you have to create a feeling of deadly without actually *causing* deadly... It should be about creating *tension* and *drama* and *a sense of the players being the contributing factor to the victory or drama or tension* in ways other than 'I smashed it. It died' or 'It smashed me. Me died.'
Well said Vincent.
Thank you, sir!
I don't disagree with that. But by the same token his death was only applauded because he'd already badassed his way through several dozen other movies first. His Chuck Norrisness is what made the death cathartic. Like Samuel L Jackson getting eaten by the shark in Deep Blue Sea. It's only Iconic because he's established as being the opposite of the kind of guy that happens to. His death means nothing if theres not an element of awesomeness attatched to it.
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In my games, new characters always start out in the same inn. In one session, the party fought a few storm giants (the party was only level 1 but I'm not going to cheat on my random encounter table rolls) and lured them to that inn as part of a trap. The plan didn't work and they TPK'd. The storm giants stuck around because there was food there and they had no reason to bother leaving. Every session since then, the players have rolled up new characters and immediately been taken down in one hit by the storm giants, often before they first got a turn. In my quest for verisimilitude I have invented spawncamping.
Also, I'd clap too if I suddenly found out that I would be spared being forced to watch Segal for the next ninety minutes.
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I don't disagree with that. But by the same token his death was only applauded because he'd already badassed his way through several dozen other movies first. His Chuck Norrisness is what made the death cathartic.
And we aren't far apart. But part of badassing is actually doing something badass.
Chuck Norris is kind of a caricature at this point, as was Segal at that point. He had assumed plot immunity, and so when he didn't...that was what made that memorable.
I don't think you should kill your characters just because, but I do think that giving anyone plot immunity immediately makes the game more scripted and less organic.
And many of us really don't like that.
Roberta Yang put all her skillpoints in hyberbolic sarcasm. I haven't seen her in months. We must have been posting in different circles.
Roberta Yang, Rainbowponythulhu misses you.
I totally agree with you though. Saving people all the time is as silly as having to hold them at death's door in order for them to feel a sense of excitement and neither is indicative of a game that couldn't use a healthy dose of awesome in areas other than 'is this your last breath or not' so that players might try not spending all of their time in the doorjam of deaths door.
Every action movie would seem inherently stupider if the hero died at the end. If iron man died at the end of avengers? If Frodo dove into the Lava? Indiana Jones saved the village children but fell to his death on the rope bridge? Braveheart is stunning but not stunningly awesome.Being able to create the *illusion* of danger effectively is cinematically more relevant even though at the end of the day you know most of the cast came back for RED 2 and Expendables 2 no matter how many bombs blew up and bullets were fired and bellies got stabbed. An interesting world is, most of the time, more than simply a deadly world unless the folks at your table are ony ever invested in a campain that keeps them at the brink of death 24x7 like a zombie apocalypse or 'storming the beaches of normandy with a spoon'
I agree that, if you want the serial to go on, creating the illusion of danger is a decent way to go. But I wouldn't agree that the hero dying at the end of the action movie would be stupid at all. I wouldn't mind seeing more of it in the movies, in fact. It's not that I particularly like martyrdom, but sometimes it really punches up the power of a story. I think Frodo's example in Lord of the Rings fits this - he survives the main denouement of the narrative and saved the Shire, but not for himself and off into the undying west he goes. Much more poignant than him simply living out the rest of his life at Bag End as a gentlemanly squire.
I agree that, if you want the serial to go on, creating the illusion of danger is a decent way to go. But I wouldn't agree that the hero dying at the end of the action movie would be stupid at all. I wouldn't mind seeing more of it in the movies, in fact. It's not that I particularly like martyrdom, but sometimes it really punches up the power of a story.
Every action movie would seem inherently stupider if the hero died at the end. If iron man died at the end of avengers? If Frodo dove into the Lava? Indiana Jones saved the village children but fell to his death on the rope bridge? Braveheart is stunning but not stunningly awesome.Being able to create the *illusion* of danger effectively is cinematically more relevant even though at the end of the day you know most of the cast came back for RED 2 and Expendables 2 no matter how many bombs blew up and bullets were fired and bellies got stabbed. An interesting world is, most of the time, more than simply a deadly world unless the folks at your table are ony ever invested in a campain that keeps them at the brink of death 24x7 like a zombie apocalypse or 'storming the beaches of normandy with a spoon'
I wont deny I kinda wish the Titanic movie were about finding the diary of a chick that waited to be rescued for 3 days floating on a door and then died anyway of exposure before being rescued. I could find a catharsis there. Then again. Titanic is not an action movie.
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Dang it; VT went and said it all!
I think of coddling as guaranteeing the players will always win or that there will be no real consequence for losing. Conversely I think of killer GMs as the folks who either never let their players win or taint the victory with some kind of loss so that the victory is not complete.
I try to fall between these in most conflicts.
If the players are going toe-to-toe with monsters I'll adjust the creatures on the fly, or use a sub-optimal strategy if I've messed up. Conversely I'll ratchet up the monster or minions if the PCs are just breezing through. However every once in a while I put in a conflict that is EXTREMELY difficult to solve by mere smashing alone. Other times, just for balance, I put in monsters well below the PCs weight class, just to show them the power they really wield.
However I try to build similar tensions when PCs are just talking with people. If they need some help in the wild and come across a foreign patrol, if I'm looking to play out the situation as a conflict and not handwave, then there will be genuine threat. The foe might be easily defeated but part of a larger force; maybe the patrol seems physically more powerful but isn't overtly threatening; maybe peeving these folks off will lead to skirmish or war if the party isn't careful.
Bottom line: be fair, build tension.
As for fudging dice well...what my players don't know won't hurt them. Much. ;)
AD I've said it before in other threads and I'll say it again - it'd be great playing a game with you sometime. Your sentiments and positions in this and many other threads seem quite agreeable to my play style. Not to mention the fact that your 3d terrain COMPLETELY blows mine away!
One thing I will say re: fairness - I am human. Sometimes I get distracted, frustrated or petty; sometimes I loose my cool. My point is that I don't always achieve success with what I'm trying to do.
I TRY to be fair, but sometimes I miss a rule, overestimate my players or their characters, or otherwise run the game poorly. When this happens I own my mistakes and collect feedback from my players. THIS might be what some consider coddling. I tend to think of it as being normal.
Likewise, I try to remember this of my players. I go a month in between games. Sometimes people forget what's going on or it takes a bit to get re-immersed in the game. Other times my players might be grappling with a personal issue like their health, the well-beind of a loved one, stress at work or just general life. Their head might not be fully in the game. Players are often NOT in the same mind and intellect of their characters.
Players shouldn't be penalized for this. Again, this may be seen as coddling but there's no reason to expect full tactical genius from a guy who's just coming off his second job and cramming game time in before a marathon study session for midterms.
I TRY to design for my players. I TRY to consider the people at the table as well as the characters they're playing when creating my game. My fervent belief is that they consider me to an equal degree. This may be naive but that's it. I don't always succeed, but I'm going to keep trying.
I usually run sandbox games and in those I have a simple rule regarding how closely challenges match the PCs level. If I've given you the quest, it's level appropriate. So if an NPC tries to hire you, or suddenly a monster attacks the village, etc. Those will always be designed around the players. If however, the players decide they want to do something themselves then it's not guaranteed to be level appropriate. For example if the PCs decide that they want to rob a bank in the city then I'll design the bank as appropriate for the campaign setting. This might be far above (or below) their CR but it's their choice to do it, so it's their responsibility to assess the risks.
I don't fudge dice rolls. I think as a GM you shouldn't make a roll or ask for one unless you're willing to accept all possible results. All our rolls are out in the open as well, so it's not terribly practical to fudge anyway.
I do sometimes warn the PCs or give them advice if I think they're about to do something that will kill their character. In the end the choice is up to them though.
I'm a fairly new GM. I've run a few oneshots with friends unfamiliar with PnP, and I will admit I veered not too close to intense combat; I would rather challenge them otherwise. I'm going to be starting my first campaign in january (with ramdom folks however), and I will admit I will be aiming for the middle of the road "challenging, but I still want to see a denouement". I like playing a game where characters can be develloped, and have a story, and "become" something. I want to encourage that, so I will admit I will adapt to make sure players "win" most of the time, with the consequences that come with victory.
A good example is my current GM. We managed to steal a part of an evil magma dragon's hoard without being murdered. He still allowed us a "win" (by giving us access to some very nice items) but nonetheless attached a condition: now the dragon is out to get us, and has been recruiting a lot of monsters to slay us (we have been meeting an unusual amount of fire drakes lately...).
I will admit though, despite my mechanical appreciation of combat, I would rather challenge my players in other spheres of interest. Which is hard, because pathfinder is centered on combat. But I'm trying nonetheless.
I like seeing all the commentary from experienced GMs though. I am currently working on a GM-player contract type of thing, and I might post it up eventually to get the commentary of "the elders".
I don't fudge dice.
I have however contrived ways for PCs to get out of a bad roll when I realized the consequences were something I didn't account for. This is largely if the PCs themselves come up with a creative solution.
For example: was designing a dungeon. Needed CR something trap. Only one with stats I could find was destruction trap. Was too lazy/tired/concentrating on other things to come up with another, so put in the trap. Figured high level rogue player who seems to never roll below 15 would handle it fine anyway so it would be at most a moderate challenge.
Rogue player who usually doesn't roll below a 15 on the die manages to fail both Disable Device check and flops 1 on saving throw. Only then I realize that he's about to be completely disintegrated in a part of the game where that is not only a much larger F-you to him or the party than I needed, it would screw up my own plotting. I wasn't going to undo it, but...
Cleric player jumps in. "If I manage to touch him before he completely disintegrates, can I breath of life to restore him?"[/b] Note cleric is high level Cleric of Death god, so generally has some pull in that arena.
I told cleric to make very hard Reflex save. Cleric makes it. I decide somehow she grabs onto him before the spell takes full effect. I fudged no rolls, but I certainly fudged the meaning of the word "instantaneous."
Played it that he starts to feel himself be pulled apart, then cleric pulls him back. I still played a scene with the rogue player that he actually did meet his maker, that the powers that be agreed to lend the power to the cleric to save him from something he shouldn't have survived, so he's very aware of what was at stake---and in turn helps him be more dedicated to helping resolve events in the game.
I could have just said "you are a pile of dust" and sucked it up for all of us, but I think it turned out okay--especially as, frankly, I just should not have put a destruction trap there.
This kind of thing seldom happens. I think players should accept consequences and high stakes, but at the same time if it's just really unfun and sucky for everyone involved (as opposed to exciting or holy crap I died but it was heroic and awesome) and people are willing to take risks or rolls to try and work for a different outcome, yes, I'll make up something on the fly to give them a second chance.
I don't change actual rolls though. Generally, with my die roll luck, the temptation to pretend they are LOWER is nonexistent. ;)
I don't fudge dice, ever. I never hold back unless the character I'm controlling would hold back. Similarly, I don't run encounters as though the enemy wants the PCs dead at all costs unless that is the motivation of the characters I control. However, not all creatures are adept at tactical combat, and that plays a role in their decisions.
My party would have been TPK'd at the end of Golgordand's Gauntlet if I had not plotted the motivations and personality of the brigands at the end of the module. The leader got a lucky swing in at the party ranger and ran him through, leaving him bleeding out at -7. The others were still climbing the rope to leave the dungeon; the party wizard topped the cliff, took one look at the situation and threw his hands up in the air.
The brigand leader was a cocky and not too bright barbarian, though. He strutted and twirled his greatsword a few times before robbing the players of a particular treasure they'd picked up and departing. They would have stripped and looted the party entirely if they didn't have an extremely temperemental diviner employer with very specific instructions. But another group of robbers might have simply killed them and taken their things. My players know that death happens and that victory is meaningless without the threat of failure and its consequences.
There is a place where this gets disappointing, though. We played the first module of Carrion Crown and got TPK'd by a moderate encounter near the module's end (three crits in a row...). That pretty much killed the adventure path, meaning that the rest of the modules purchased went unplayed. I don't know the details as I was a player for that game, but the GM implied that given the time constraints there wasn't a reasonable way to roll a new party to investigate, figure out all the things the first party figured out, and still solve the module before Bad Things Happen.
How do you deal with such situations where party failure means that the whole campaign is screwed? That's no fun for the GM and little fun for the players unless they take pride in their PC body count.
I'm not sure coddle is the word, but I do try to be player friendly. I try my best to facilitate fun for the players. So that level varies with those around the table. I have over the years learned a few things.
1) Don't be afraid to raise or lower the bar in an encounter. Adding to or xubtracting from the critters by altering hit points, powers, to hit, damage, etc..... can move any encounter in a direction that makes it more fun for the players. altering dice rolls is the final fine tuning.
2) Talk through actions with the players. If a player wants to leap off the balconey, swing by the chandalier, and land with both feet in the BBG's chest that's cool, but let them know what you're going to make them roll before they do it. That lets you keep tough things tough, and gives the player a fair chance of evaluating a situation. Yes we're talking dice rolls, but imagine the character looking at it and figuring out everything that manuver requires. Nothing kills the fun like wanting to do something awesome and finding out half way from balconey to chandalier you're character can't make it.
3) Tying into the above situation. Always remember that you see the scene as it is, the players are seeing it as they think it should be. So don't hesitate to make sure they understand you're concept of the scene, and even let them back up a bit if they acted out of their imagination and not yours.
4) Rarely force players to do something or remember something specific. While it might make a lot of sense to you, it's seldom apparent to the players. Again it's your imagination versus theirs. Since your's is the one that counts. So give the character a chance to see/remember/know/learn the important things. Nothing kills fun like players floundering around looking for clues. Make them take game time for the characters to do it. Make them do it in the right places and in the right manner, but make sure if they do it right, they find what's important.
Player error or hard headedness should get it's full reward. Players not seeing everything as I designed it, or my design being slightly off, or me missing something shouldn't hurt the players. 1st level characters caught in a ground hog world of coming to life in an inn full of monsters they can never defeat won't bring much fun to the table for long. You've got to help the players see your world and adventure in it. Bad decisions and high risk decisions should have to be lived with. Uninformed, and misunderstood decisions by me or the players shouldn't.
I just give out hero points and let them pull themselves out of the fire (I don't allow automatic stabilize). If they run out of HPs and make bad decisions or just have bad luck then it's game over for that character. If it makes sense for the characters to be taken prisoner then I'll go that route as well.
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I find myself in the same camp as mkenner. In the sandbox world I ran, I made sure to provide the characters with level appropriate hooks, but any self-motivated exploring would have to make sense for the world, not the party.
I don't fudge dice, ever. I never hold back unless the character I'm controlling would hold back. Similarly, I don't run encounters as though the enemy wants the PCs dead at all costs unless that is the motivation of the characters I control. However, not all creatures are adept at tactical combat, and that plays a role in their decisions.
My party would have been TPK'd at the end of Golgordand's Gauntlet if I had not plotted the motivations and personality of the brigands at the end of the module. The leader got a lucky swing in at the party ranger and ran him through, leaving him bleeding out at -7. The others were still climbing the rope to leave the dungeon; the party wizard topped the cliff, took one look at the situation and threw his hands up in the air.
The brigand leader was a cocky and not too bright barbarian, though. He strutted and twirled his greatsword a few times before robbing the players of a particular treasure they'd picked up and departing. They would have stripped and looted the party entirely if they didn't have an extremely temperemental diviner employer with very specific instructions. But another group of robbers might have simply killed them and taken their things. My players know that death happens and that victory is meaningless without the threat of failure and its consequences.
There is a place where this gets disappointing, though. We played the first module of Carrion Crown and got TPK'd by a moderate encounter near the module's end (three crits in a row...). That pretty much killed the adventure path, meaning that the rest of the modules purchased went unplayed. I don't know the details as I was a player for that game, but the GM implied that given the time constraints there wasn't a reasonable way to roll a new party to investigate, figure out all the things the first party figured out, and still solve the module before Bad Things Happen.
How do you deal with such situations where party failure means that the whole campaign is screwed?...
I tell the players that they have to make characters that could pick up where the previous character left off. Have them make characters that could have been in the background somehow and would have access to the same general info that the party had--most likely through an NPC that was directly tied to the previous group and could catch up the new guys on details. Also new characters could have personal ties to the old characters and thus be motivated to carry on the mission. And good example of this is Giant Size X-Men #1 when the old x-men are captured and Xavier has to recruit new X-Men.
Really an entirely subjective question.
What do the players want? There's your answer.
I don't agree. Players want a lot of things that would be detrimental to the game. It's up to the GM to learn to be tough but fair (which includes listening to the players), and it's up to the players to be mature enough to know that not everything will go their way. Sort of like children who want to eat a lot of cookies but then get sick because no one stops them. It's up to the parent to make sure this doesn't happen. Am I saying that players are like children? Yep.
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I like to run two concurrent campaigns.
The "A" campaign will have optimized PCs, all rolls in the open, hard-mode tactical gaming. Sometimes the BBEG will go down like a chump. Sometimes he'll TPK the party, and I don't shed a tear. PC deaths happen; if yours dies, roll up another one if you can't get resurrected. If the fate of the world is at stake and you screw it up, then that campaign world suffers the consequences of that failure.
The "B" campaign will have experimental or "fun" PCs, no real emphasis on dice rolling, and overall will be soft-mode. Character death probably won't happen, but you'll be sure to get into all kinds of zany stuff -- the DM (me) gets to be experimental, too! The setting probably won't get destroyed by anything you do, but all kinds of unexpected stuff might get added in.
I don't think one is "better" than the other. Everyone just needs to be on board with which one you're playing, is all. If I'm in an "A" game and all fired up for hard-mode tactics, and the DM starts pulling punches so that the party "just barely" winds all the encounters, I'll probably quit that game because of the problem of incompatible goals/expectations. (If I make a "B" character and the DM pulls out a hard-mode game, I'll die quickly, so that problem is quickly self-correcting!)
I think as the DM you are the judge of time and fate in your world. The characters are in the palm of your hands and sometimes you take it easy on them and other times you try to apply pressure and they surprise you. Just once in awhile you have to take the kiddy gloves off see what they can do. Sink or swim no pulled punches.
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I am wondering how GMs in general address this issue with their players. Do you have a specific social contract in place? By which I mean have you officially stated, in your capacity as a GM, at the gaming table (or through email) that you do or do not fudge encounters? If you have made such a statement, to you truly stick to your guns, or do you sometimes fudge anyway?
I am totally up front with my players:
1) I do not fudge anything (not just dice, either--I don't suddenly rule more enemies pop out if it was too easy, or have deus ex machina save them if they're having a rough go of it).
2) I do not allow any resurrections whatsoever--if you die, you're dead. Only Breath of Life works. So, hey, don't die.
3) I do not do magic items--there are no wands of cure light wounds or potions laying around anywhere.
4) However, I never use any abilities/spells/whatever with permanent negative effects, nor do I use any save or die abilities, period. So, no Level or Ability Drain (I use lots of poison and ability damage, though--just not drain), no petrification, no permanent blindess or curses, nothing. There's no spells for sale and no magic items, so it's not really fair to do that. Plus, it is my contention that those sorts of things (and the death as a revolving door thing) are designed basically to eat money and curtail PC wealth--since there are no magic items and I give little to no wealth, there's no need to eat gold/curtail wealth in that fashion.
Now, before anyone thinks I'm some kind of killer GM, though, I've been running D&D in various forms for 20 years, and I've never had a PC death.
Ok, well, that's not totally true. I never run anyone else's stuff (no modules, no APs, hell, I don't even use the Bestiary/Monster Manuals, I make everything myself). However, one time I did try an AP because I heard such good things about them. I ran the first book of Serpent's Skull (I did love the concept) and after the initial few sessions of settling and surviving, I had something like 5 PC deaths in 8 weeks. It was awful. I hate running other people's stuff.
And what do you consider "coddling" or "fudging" anyway?
I don't know what coddling would be like, but fudging is stealing a player's agency. Every time you fudge something, player choices mean less. That's a problem for me. Fudging something to make me win takes just as much agency from me as fudging to make me lose. As a PC, I want neither (though I understand many players would disagree and would want you to fudge to save the characters they've grown attached to).
If you carefully tailor an encounter to match the party's power level, is that an example of coddling the players? After all there's usually no compelling story reason that a group of ogres be 3 ogres instead of 6. But 6 would wipe out the party, while 3 would be a good challenge. So by building a 3 ogre encounter are you already "coddling" the party, even before the encounter begins?
I don't think that's coddling the party, but that's a very different kind of game than the one I run or would ideally want to play in. Making sure every encounter is perfectly tailored to challenge the party, I think, also takes away my agency--it means that my choices will never make a fight easier (or harder), because they're all going to be just right.
If you do tailor encounters to match the party's power level, and it ends up that you misjudged and the encounter is obviously careening towards a TPK, do you consider that to be a player problem and continue to play your NPCs or monsters rigorously according to their abilities, or do you consider the situation to be a GM mistake that now needs to be corrected by the GM by fudging some rolls or making some deliberately poor tactical choices?
I don't design encounters at all, so this doesn't really apply to me, but I can answer from a PC's perspective.
If the GM blows it and makes something too hard, I just want the GM to learn from his mistake and do better next time. If we get away, we get away. If not, I'll make a new character. But if you fix it on the fly and make sure I live, then I had nothing to do with living--my agency is diminished. If I only live by your hand alone, I might as well not live as far as I'm concerned.
mpl, I think you are going pretty binary on me here. Adjusting an encounter to better balance it is not the same thing as ensuring that the players survive. In my opinion it also isn't removing player agency, in fact I would argue it is creating player agency. If my encounter is clearly going to TPK the party no matter what the party does, adjusting it on the fly so that it is balanced provides the players the opportunity to make choices that matter.
You seem to be taking my comments too far. In my opinion anyway.
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My players give me a hard core stink eye if they even suspect coddling is going on. We play a more Kobold and knaves sim style so death is fairly common. A few players get attached to their PCs and adding hero points has helped allow me to keep the gloves off. The PCs have a fair shot at staying alive even if the dice are against them. I change it up on the fly sparingly when I feel it will help which is not often.
mpl, I think you are going pretty binary on me here. Adjusting an encounter to better balance it is not the same thing as ensuring that the players survive. In my opinion it also isn't removing player agency, in fact I would argue it is creating player agency. If my encounter is clearly going to TPK the party no matter what the party does, adjusting it on the fly so that it is balanced provides the players the opportunity to make choices that matter.
You seem to be taking my comments too far. In my opinion anyway.
I did not intend to imply you were doing anything wrong, only that I would not like it.
If the encounter is clearly going to TPK I would personally rather be TPKed. You may think making it balanced makes my choices in the fight matter more, but it invalidates some of my previous choices (for example, the choice to get involved in the fight in the first place) and shows me that the only reason my choices matter is because you want them to--in other words, I don't really have free will because my ability to choose is contingent on your whim.
Again, this is just my opinion, not the right way--I am very well aware that many people would rather you fix the encounter. Some would even prefer to be out and out saved arbitrarily. I play with at least one, for example, who'd take a thousand fudged rolls if it keeps his character alive.
I don't think I am taking your comments too far, I think you're just under the impression that I couldn't possibly feel this way about something you consider to be so insignificant, but I do.
mpl, I do think we aren't on quite the same page, but I think I understand your point, but we disagree about free will and player agency. This is what I mean by "binary", you seem to think that any adjustment by the GM automatically invalidates player choices entirely. That logic would suggest that if I add a goblin to the encounter, then nothing the players do matter at all any more. That would only be true if the GM will make any adjustments necessary to have exactly the outcome they want. That's not what I am describing at all.
Your logic would seem to suggest that players never had any free will to begin with since every thing they do is dependent on the GM's whim. So if the GM is designing things with the goal to have a desired outcome, which I think is what most GMs do as a matter of course, your approach would seem to suggest that there's no point to playing at all since the players choices "don't matter".
At least that's how it seems to me.
This is what I mean by "binary", you seem to think that any adjustment by the GM automatically invalidates player choices entirely.
Nah, I'm not that extreme. But any adjustment by the GM is more adjustment than I'd like.
That logic would suggest that if I add a goblin to the encounter, then nothing the players do matter at all any more.
Adding a goblin doesn't mean nothing the players do matters. However, my problem is, where did that Goblin come from? Why did it suddenly show up? Does it actually follow logically? What if I planned my attack based on recon about the number of goblins there? Did that goblin just appear from midair?
I want some level of fidelity in my games--if there's another goblin showing up, it should come from somewhere that makes sense. If goblins just appear, it does diminish the value of scouting.
And of course 1 Goblin is unlikely to make a huge difference, but constantly seeing a goblin here or a goblin there is definitely a problem for me.
That would only be true if the GM will make any adjustments necessary to have exactly the outcome they want. That's not what I am describing at all.
That's the thing though--as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter to what end the GM manipulates things, it's him manipulating it that bothers me. His goals don't matter, his actions do.
Your logic would seem to suggest that players never had any free will to begin with since every thing they do is dependent on the GM's whim. So if the GM is designing things with the goal to have a desired outcome, which I think is what most GMs do as a matter of course, your approach would seem to suggest that there's no point to playing at all since the players choices "don't matter".
At least that's how it seems to me.
My ideal GM is, well, the kind of GM I am. I don't have any agenda when I run the game--all I do is present the world and then act as the world with as much fidelity as possible.
On the topic of Goblins, I wouldn't design an encounter or series of encounters, I'd just present a goblin society. There will be a set number of them that makes sense in context. Everything about their den will be presented as faithfully and impartially as possible. If they wouldn't feel threatened, there may be no guards. If they are paranoid, they may have huge patrols. If the PCs break in during a communal meal time, they'll be mostly in one room. If they live somewhere with good accoustics, fights will pull from room to room. Individual goblins will make decisions based on their personality and the situation, etc.
If the PCs sneak in and figure out how to deal with goblins one by one, or all at once in a way that offers little to no risk, then that's awesome for them. I'm not going to add goblins or whatever to make it harder--they deserve to have an easy time because they thought about it and planned well and made good choices. I'm not going to have fewer goblins, either, though, if they blunder in on a feast or something, because that invalidates their bad choices, which is just as bad.
My personal preference is for organic encounters that are not designed at all. My secondary choice would be for a designed encounter that is unaltered and played as faithfully to the design as possible.
Well, mpl, you must have far more time for your GM activities than I do, and I spend a LOT of time on my GM activities. Your approach here implies that you can't have a group of ogres unless you have worked out the entire ogre ecology, otherwise you just have an arbitrary number of ogres somewhere in the world for the players to encounter. You cant have a random manticore flyby unless you have the entire manticore family defined and laid out.
It simply isn't realistic for me to create entire lizard folk societies just so I can have a lizard folk encounter for my players.
So I create actual encounters and do my best to make them a challenge for my players. And sometimes that means I will adjust them as I discover more about the players' abilities and desires.
I'd love to roam around in your worlds so I could explore this concept of never creating an encounter and having the whole world laid out organically for me. Maybe some day I'll get to do so.
F#&# I dunno. Sometimes I just get those dead eyes that watch the 20s stack up and PCs fall like dominoes. And sometimes I bite my lip and beg my players to roll higher numbers because this beast is going to murder you if you don't.
I have run the full spectrum over the past 30 years of GMing and I think that I have found my happy medium. First, I don't have a "contract" with the players on whether I fudge or coddle. Second, I fudge where I can and coddle when I should. I usually have one goal in mind when I run a game which is as follows:
I want my game to be talked about. Not at the game table when we're all together, but in between sessions. You know, those quiet times, when, say perhaps, two of my group are out together doing whatever and they talk about what happened. They say something, like, "That was so cool when that troll threw the tree at you and your shield blocked most of it but sent you flying back about twenty feet." That is my goal.
To achieve that goal, sometimes I may fudge the rolls to obtain that magical moment. Maybe I will "guide " a player on a course of action that may help them. The point is though is that it's memorable, that they want to keep coming back to the table, and that they like the stories that we tell.
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It depends on the group.
I don't see the virtue in TPKing a group of first-time players who haven't got to grips with their abilities yet.
To be honest, I don't understand the hostility fudging gets.
If you and your players are having fun then what you are doing is right. It doesn't really matter what theoretical criticisms the scorn box that is the internet might throw your way.
Well, mpl, you must have far more time for your GM activities than I do, and I spend a LOT of time on my GM activities. Your approach here implies that you can't have a group of ogres unless you have worked out the entire ogre ecology, otherwise you just have an arbitrary number of ogres somewhere in the world for the players to encounter. You cant have a random manticore flyby unless you have the entire manticore family defined and laid out.
I tend to do things fairly similarly to mpl, at least based on the limited descriptions we've had so far.
However I don't really prep for games much at all, except for flipping through the books daydreaming about possibly cool ways of using each monster/spell/item/etc or occasionally statting out a particularly relevant NPC.
I just introduce elements into the game as I think of them, I just try to make sure it's internally consistent with everything that's previously been determined in the game. So as long as having some ogres around makes sense in light of everything else, I might throw in some ogres. Then everything else I put in the nearby area will make sense based on having those ogres there, so the next people the PCs meet might be a bunch of NPC giant-hunters looking for the ogres.
That said, while the creative side of my brain is introducing these ideas the more numerical side is calculating them based on suitable challenge, CRs, etc.
I don't adjust anything that's already established, but since I don't have anything pre-prepared there's still plenty of wiggle room for including things the PCs are interested in or to provide more challenge if it looks like they were bored with the encounter.
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The one essential truth I've found is this:
Be honest with your group up front.
If you're going to fudge dice and so on, make that clear at the beginning of the campaign. That way you don't need to mention it whenever you do it, but everyone knows what they're signing up for.
Likewise, if you won't fudge and let them die, make that clear at the outset also.
Lying to your players (even by omission) over something that essential to how the game runs is the absolute worst thing you can do as a DM.